It’s the 15 year anniversary since our first date, and Dawn and I get into a spat over the gingerbread decorating event planned by the Girl Scout troop at a local school. I ask, what do we do while they’re… Read More ›
parenting
Song of my 40s, still life
I can palm the cat’s head in my lap when she’s napping in the morning and it’s still dark — with just candles and Brian Eno playing, sometimes you can’t tell if it’s even on, that’s the thing about ambient… Read More ›
So what about the mid-life crisis?
Charlotte and I decide to walk to the lake. The lake is about 10 minutes away, she’s 7, and it’s the first time we’ve walked there together, just the two of us. She’s balancing along a stone wall about four… Read More ›
For anyone who cares what they look like when found dead, puts on make-up to jog, or combs their hair before bed
We go to Portland for the weekend, to get away. They’re so polite in Portland, their graffiti looks like this: LIFE CHECKLIST WORK HARD PLAY HARD LOVE YOURSELF All the boxes are checked. I look around and think, maybe it… Read More ›
Prism of grocery store clerk impressions
The song Lunatic Fringe comes on overhead and the checker, who’s deep in her 50s, looks up and disappears for a moment to another time, smiles a secret smile to herself and goes off to another place, all her own…. Read More ›
Remote diagnostics: kids and phones
The kids got phones yesterday. They’re 9 and almost 7. Charlotte clasped her hands and said, mine has The Internet! Lily sat on the steps in the dark and lost herself in the folds of the display. They were both hand-me-down… Read More ›
Cow dung in foreground
Lily and I drive up the Teanaway to get away, bond. We pull the Pilot over at mile marker 11, where the trail report says you should start: pass the gate that says No Motorized Vehicles, head up the private… Read More ›
Heads buried in books, Powell’s, Portland
We pass Powell’s bookstore in Portland, which says it’s the largest independent bookstore in the world and sure feels that way. Even though it’s a sunny afternoon in January all the seats are full of people not with tablets or… Read More ›
Running the days out like tap water
I think about Charlotte coming down the steps in the morning, her hair a bird’s nest, the pitter-patter of bare feet across the floor. When it was especially hard early on in parenting, Dawn reminded me it wouldn’t always be… Read More ›
Winter’s Playground
Drinking good wine out of paper cups at the Howard Johnson’s in the mountains, the knocking through the wall could be the neighbors signaling Keep it down, or the neighbors knocking each other around, with the bed frame. We decide… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 